Nina Hartley, "In the Flesh: A Porn Star's Journey"

Nina Hartley in the article "In the Flesh: A Porn Star's Journey," she discuss about how she became apart of the feminist debate, when she went public of her work as a sex worker. Hartley is like another Annie Sprinkle, who helps guide people through their sexualities. By creating such books showing step by step techniques, she discussed about how she became in touch with her own sexuality. The reason she entered the field of sex work is because she had many questions that she wanted to explore. She wanted to defend the sex industry against feminist disapproval; this is where she states "How could I defend my personal desire (and long-held fantasy) to indulge my strong streak of exhibitionism/voyeurism, as well as to have access to other bisexual women?" (Hartley 57). Hartley acknowledge that she made a decent amount of money in the sex industry and have come to find many positive aspects of working in the sex industry such as she was able to enhanced self-image, sexual variety and where she is able to help create a variety of ideas about sex in society. She became a role model for many young performers entering the field of pornography and began to practice her feminist by sharing her experiences. Her early exposure to feminist discussions were around the body and sexuality (where she is especially interested in childbirth). Working in the sex industry, it had helped her "to explore and accept many aspects of my sexuality [which led her] to wonderful places. It made [her] happier and [a] more loving woman" (Hartley 60). She points out the problems that usually exists within women who are uncomfortable with their sexually because they blame men , as she states "I learned that to be eternally mad at men's sexual 'nature' was as useful as being mad that water is wet. Anger inhibits intimacy and shared pleasure, to the detriment of all involved. I seek my work to defuse anger so that pleasure I invoke can work its healing magic" (Hartley 61).

Mireille Miller-Young, "Hardcore Desire: Black Women Laboring in Porn-Is It Just Another Job?"

In "Hardcore Desire: Black Women Laboring in Porn-Is It Just Another Job?," Mireille Miller-Young discussed the life of young Black dancers and raised questions such as "How do young Black women entering the adult entertainment industry understand their motivations and places in a culture that for the most part foregoes eroticism and reproduces two-dimensional stereotypes of Black women in hardcore as tasty brown sugar and nasty ghetto hos?" (Miller-Young 32). In the sex industry, which is mainly run by white men, Black dancers only get paid half of what the White dancers make, which is why the author argues that “Black women are less desirable in the sexual marketplace than white women” (32). Miller-Young discovered that most Black women who are a part of the hardcore sex industry maintain that this work helps support them financially and allows for personal advancement. In fact, the sex industry allows working class women to earn better wages in a shorter amount of time than other industries. Women that Miller-Young interviewed were using the sex industry as a way to fight against racism and sexism, and saw it as an opportunity to reach stardom. Women such as Jeannie Pepper, stated that they were in the business to reinforce the notion of black as beautiful and wondered why more black women do not partake in the sex industry. It is a way to access “wealth and […] resources that lie outside of their communities, but also they seek greater visibility” (34). These women are constantly fighting against the stereotypes held within the white community and are often unheard within the industry. Although, dealing with inequality within the sex industry, they faced the fact that it is a job that help them with their bills.

Siobhan Brooks, "Dancing Towards Freedom"

In the article " Dancing Toward Freedom," Siobhan Brooks argued that racism still exists in various places such as the Lusty Lady, where she worked. During college Brooks worked at the Lusty Lady to pay her way through school. She felt relieved to know that her show director, Josephine Baker, is also a woman of color because most workers at the Lusty Lady were white women. The Lusty Lady shattered stereotypes of strippers, as Brooks states, "Most of the women at the Lusty Lady are students, artists, or both; they are very intelligent and creative, refuting the stereotypes of the brainless sex bunnies" (Brooks 252). Although she felt a sense of a family relationship with her Lusty Lady co-workers, she still felt the racism that existed. She witnessed the racism that existed within the workers and the customers, especially when white customers lost interest in her performances. Brooks had noticed that black dancers did not get to dance in the private pleasure booth, and brought up the issue with Baker, only to get shot down because white customers had little interest in the black dancers. She realized from this experience that "all the Black women at the Lusty Lady were attractive, we just did not do as well economically as other dancers" (Brooks 253). Because of this issue, she wanted to unite and organize amongst Black dancers to bring forth the issues of the unfair treatment of the Black dancers. What led her to unite and organize was that although she felt like the Lusty Lady is supposed to be like a family, the relationship between the white and colored dancers were like, what she calls a "melting pot' theory-we were all supposed to get along without any dialogue about racism, even though we were clearly being discriminated against because of our race" (Brooks 254). Although uniting and organizing did not solve the issues of fair scheduling in the private pleasure booth, it did help the colored dancers get more money per hour. From this experience, as a black woman, she had learned that she will continue to fight against issues of racism and that she does not stand alone on these issues.

Jackson Belle, "A Matter of Pride: Thoughts on Being a Bad Stripper"

In the article “A Matter of Pride: Thoughts on Being a Bad Stripper,” Jackson Belle discussed her experiences as a stripper. Working as a stripper does not always bring in good money which is why she explains how to be a good stripper, so as to earn more money like other strippers at her strip club. Sometimes she felt like she was not beautiful enough to be asked to dance for a customer or to earn good money even on a slow night. She learned from her experiences as a stripper that it is a part of her job “to aid him in his fantasy” (Belle 44). Although going against this notion of pleasing the men, she took pride in speaking to them to where she did not feel like she was an average woman. She realized that the customers possess some power because they are the ones who decide whether her bills are paid on time, among other things. It is where she came to realize that “it was a place where men came for the privilege of being male: male consumers and male spectators” (Belle 45). It became her personal mission to “maintain a pleasant demeanor” towards the customer. With her new attitude and attempt to befriend one of the young men at her job, she was able to earn a large amount of money.

Carol Queen, "The Four Foot Phallus"

In “The Four Foot Phallus,” Carol Queen talked about the first time she was exposed to porn at her graduate school because they wanted the students to be “desensitized” porn. Before going to going to graduate school, she was an anti-pornography feminist. She thought that pornography was awful and dirty. While watching “The Fuckarama!,” she began to come to terms with her sexuality; “the promised desensitization didn’t seem to be happening to me; my clit was positively buzzing. Everything made me horny, even things I thought I’d never do” (Queen 141). It first struck her when she saw a penis, which she stated to have “taken up four feet of wall” because she had never really looked at a penis that close up before. Because of this discovery, Queen realized that pornography is educational. Pornography had helped Queen discover her orgasm and she states that “the visuals of a porn movie [had] simultaneously inspire and distract me” (143).

This experience helped her change her views on pornography, which she thought as an anti-feminist that pornography was only really made for men but now exposed to pornography she understood that it is also for women. After watching “The Fuckarama,” the penis had changed her in a way that she states: “The four-foot phallus-[had became] a much deeper acquaintance with my own eroticism” (144). She was no longer afraid of sex, but began to explore sex. Queen was able to not only explore but be in touch with her sexuality which she has never done before.

Celine Parrenas Shimizu, "Sex for Sale: Queens of Anal, Double, Triple, and the Gang Bang: Producing Asian/American Feminism in Pornography"

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Interview with Barbara DeGenevieve

With the pleasure of Barbara DeGenevieve coming to our class, we were able to view the pornography that she produces within the queer community that is different in comparison to the mainstream heterosexual and/or gay and lesbian porn. DeGenevieve is a professor at the School of Art Institute of Chicago and is an multimedia artist, writer and work in video, photography and performance. In the “Interview with Barbara DeGenevieve,” she talked about her website www.ssspread.com, which people pay a fee to subscribe to the site to view her production in the queer porn she produced. The reason that it is not free is because then she would not be able to pay the models for the work. Her work of queer pornography focuses on different types of body images, which she state “Every fetish and every body type imaginable-hairy women, fat people, men with small penises, grandmothers, the list goes on and on,” is represented in her work (DeGenevieve 142). The meaning of queer porn to DeGenevieve is much different than gay and lesbian porn because it is portrayed differently than the mainstream pornography that only portrays a certain kind of image. When Libidot asked DeGenevieve what queer’s sexuality mean to her, she states “Queer’ to me is different from ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian.’ Queers are more outrageous, less interested in fitting in or being culturally ‘normal’, and generally live within a community of social and political activism. Queer is very inclusive of gender deviations and variations that are not part of a more traditional ‘gay/lesbian’ sexuality” (DeGenevieve 144).